Dave, I think that quad iMac is the most economical choice if you're looking for some serious HP for the desktop. The iMac has morphed into a more pro-sumer machine rather than just a Hanna Housewife email and web browsing machine.

.Extremely unlikely.How do you bridge the gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro?I think a consumer tower would have to have:Intel Core i7 930 processorATI HD 5770 video card.6GB of memory.That would probably cost around $2,300 or more considering it's Apple.That's a gaming machine. How many people would buy it?

You can put less in it but then you are back to the iMac.

If Apple came out with a consumer tower with a Intel Core i7 980X and an ATI HD 5970 video card. I'd probably buy it.The price would be over $4,000. Once again, who is going to buy it besides me?

_________________________
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Dave, I think that quad iMac is the most economical choice if you're looking for some serious HP for the desktop. The iMac has morphed into a more pro-sumer machine rather than just a Hanna Housewife email and web browsing machine.

I would completely agree with this. The iMacs have "enough" power. How much is enough? If you know how to turn apps off you are not using and are not doing hyper crazy filtering in Photoshop these things have plenty of power.

I go on about wanting 24 and 48 cores but really it doesn't need to be on one or two boxes in the lab and I terminal into them. But since the software is effed up we have six doing this stuff.

The iMAcs can do most anything in my lab and they are cheap and very slick. They also have a five year lifetime without shifting too many times in the lab.

That is the CPU and the memory. For a lab there cannot be too much hard drive space but we do that by servers. Nothing gets unplugged hen it gets old, it becomes a server.

.Extremely unlikely.How do you bridge the gap between the iMac and the Mac Pro?I think a consumer tower would have to have:Intel Core i7 930 processorATI HD 5770 video card.6GB of memory.That would probably cost around $2,300 or more considering it's Apple.That's a gaming machine. How many people would buy it?

I don't have all day to study the latest CPU/GPU technologies like you do, but I'm sure you used all the latest and greatest in your specs. That's not what low end towers from Apple ever were. I'm sure that price could be knocked down to sub $2000, and have decent enough specs to run anything outside of pro apps fast enough. They would also have internal expandability so that the user that is a little more than just internet, but not into production of any kind, would be able to have some expansion so they wouldn't need all sorts of HD's and hubs hanging off of the computer.

I think Apple is missing a market, but I also don't have a Learjet at my disposal so what do I know.

.Actually your points are very well taken.Okay, so put the guts of the iMac into a consumer tower but make it so it is expandable.That would probably be a computer worth getting for a lot of people.And it should sell for below two grand.

For example, the new iMacs and Mac Pros will not have USB 3.0.But USB 3.0 will probably be available with a third party PCI Express card.The Mac Pro could use it but the iMac can't because it's not expandable.

By the way, if you inherit a fortune, don't buy a Learjet, get a Gulfstream..

_________________________
Do not argue with an idiot. He will drag you down to his level and beat you with experience.

Xplain's use of MacNews, AppleCentral and AppleExpo are not affiliated with Apple, Inc. MacTech is a registered trademark of Xplain Corporation. AppleCentral, MacNews, Xplain, "The journal of Apple technology", Apple Expo, Explain It, MacDev, MacDev-1, THINK Reference, NetProfessional, MacTech Central, MacTech Domains, MacForge, and the MacTutorMan are trademarks or service marks of Xplain Corp. Sprocket is a registered trademark of eSprocket Corp. Other trademarks and copyrights appearing in this printing or software remain the property of their respective holders.

All contents are Copyright 1984-2010 by Xplain Corporation. All rights reserved. Theme designed by Icreon.